TIME: Dr. Cristin Kearns

The former dentist turned investigative researcher is exposing how the sugar industry got us hooked.

You started investigating the sugar industry after attending a dental conference on diabetes. Why?

I got a government brochure about preventing diabetes, and the nutritional advice was to reduce calories, increase fiber, decrease fat. It didn’t say anything about sugar. One of the speakers had a fast-food nutrition guide, and [a sweet tea] got ranked as a “healthy.” I asked him, “How can you characterize sweet tea, which has a ton of sugar in it, as a healthy drink?” His response was that there’s no evidence linking sugar to chronic disease. I just looked at him like, What?